Why do we associate skirts and jewellery with women? The answer is psychic powers! No, really. Read on to learn more...

Back in January, a big makeup company hired their first male model. That was big news, because makeup adverts always sell to women. Everybody knows that makeup is for women. But as we’ve mentioned before, ‘everybody knows’ is how stereotypes survive, replacing the need for reasoning that makes sense. Last week was New York Fashion Week, and another big splash was made by men and women modelling together in the same types of clothes. Why’s that news? Because ‘everybody knows’ men wear trousers, women wear skirts. Just like everybody knows pink is a girl’s colour, and that guys don’t care about their looks the way women do. When it comes to how you look, stereotypes never seem to go out of fashion.

OK, so what do psychic powers have to do with wearing a skirt, exactly? It’s all about how the brain works. Every moment, everyone’s brain is predicting the future! Not by magic, but based on looking at everything currently happening, and then projecting what comes next. Your brain is doing that even when you’re not thinking about it. When something happens that you couldn’t see coming, it makes you react because your brain was already predicting a future where that didn’t happen. That’s why you jump in scary movies. And your brain isn’t just looking at what’s happening right now; it remembers all the similar times in the past, and makes its prediction based on that as well. So why does this matter? Well, if you’ve spent your life seeing men in trousers, and you see one in a skirt, it doesn’t fit your prediction, and your brain reacts. It makes you pay attention in a way you don’t to all the other people. It’s important to understand that because what it shows is that your reaction is coming from you. If you see someone dressed in a way that’s not typical, there isn’t something 'wrong' in them that makes you react - It’s just your brain tripping up because it made a wrong guess.

OK, We're not saying you're Professor X, but...

Seeing a boy wearing a dress or makeup - or a girl who doesn’t - all your response tells you is that they’re dressing differently to lots of people you’ve seen before. Not worse, or wrong. Just different to what you’re used to. Humans are more than just automatic machines, and even if our brain on autopilot wants to react to something, when we think about it, we can see that actually there’s nothing to react to. Feeling uncomfortable or finding it funny is your brain on autopilot, and knowing that the reason is just seeing something unexpected, you know that reaction doesn’t actually belong.

Like a lot of stereotypes, thinking things look ‘strange’ survives because it reinforces itself. As long as we keep thinking something is strange, telling people not to look that way, and expecting them to look another way, we stop people looking how they want. And that means our brain doesn’t see the things it needs to make better predictions. That means when we do see things we don’t expect, we react to them. And that causes us to keep telling people how to look. When people’s uniforms tell girls they have to wear skirts, when makeup is only sold to women, when a man in a dress is a joke on TV, these are all things we do because they fit our expectations, and by doing them, we make them expected again in future.

In fact, when we stop treating things as strange, they stop seeming strange altogether! When we accept that anyone can look how they want, people become less scared to do so. That means we see more people looking different - And now our brains stop predicting everyone will look the same, and start predicting that people could look all sorts of ways. And since that prediction is right, our brain doesn’t try and react any more to the things it once did. It’s the same reason a kilt doesn’t look strange in Scotland, or a wizard’s robe in a movie - Because it fits in with what our brain predicted. (Talking of movies, every actor of any gender wears makeup on screen!)

It’s important not to get this idea backwards: If something doesn’t fit our predictions, that doesn’t make them strange - It just means our brain made an incorrect guess. It doesn’t tell us anything about that person. As always, share your thoughts on Facebook and Twitter, and we'll be back next week.

One of our most successful workshops here at TIGER is on the topic of ‘Porn and Consent’. Something we’ve found is that a lot of people haven’t encountered the term ‘consent’ or are hazy on exactly what it means. (People generally know what porn is!) Really, though, consent is a very simple idea. It’s the notion that people should have your permission to do things that affect you. ‘Can I borrow your pen?’ ‘Sure.’ - That’s consent! Taking a pen without asking means you don’t have consent. So far so simple, but people don’t always manage to do this, and it’s often a problem when they want to show affection. You can’t have sex with someone, or kiss them, or just give them a hug, unless they want you to. You don’t want people doing things to you that you don’t want, and neither does anyone else. If you’re thinking ‘Well of course’, that’s good, but it’s not so obvious to everyone.

The problems emerge when people make consent more complicated than it is. You ask permission, they say ‘yes’, and that’s consent. But people have asked ‘What if…’ or ‘How about…’ and blurred the lines for some people. So, here’s a few things that are NOT consent:

What if they didn’t say no?

That’s not consent! A famous slogan that originated several years ago is ‘No means no!’ It’s completely true; if someone says ‘no’, it means ‘no’ with no ifs or buts about it. But it’s very important to understand that even if they don’t say ‘no’, that’s not the same as saying ‘yes’.

What if it’s not a big deal?

It’s always a big deal. It doesn’t matter what you want to do, it’s a big enough deal that you should ask. Yes, even to give them a hug.

How about if they say yes when they’re drunk?

That’s not consent. When people aren’t able to think clearly for any reason, whether that’s being drunk or something else, you can’t be sure they mean what they say. Even if they seem sure they mean ‘yes’ at the time, when they sober up they might realise they didn’t. A person has to be able to think clearly to say ‘yes’ meaningfully.

But they did say yes! Eventually.

This is a BIG no-no. If you’ve tried to make them change their mind, or pushed them to answer yes, or made them feel bad or scared about saying no, then you haven’t got consent. You can’t manipulate their answer. Consent is consent only if they really mean it, not if they said it under pressure.

It really is a simple yes or no question, and consent means they say yes and they mean it. Nothing else. So why do people make it so complicated? Well, sometimes it’s innocent. People just haven’t thought about it. If you explain to them that they’re going wrong, they’ll realise and that’s that. For some people it’s unconscious. They don’t really realise they’re trying to blur the lines. If that might be you, you need to be more aware of why you’re doing things, and always think honestly about whether you’ve really got consent. Sadly, some people are just selfish. They care about getting what they want more than doing something someone else doesn’t want. That isn’t OK in any way, and twisting consent to suit your desires is just as bad as doing it without asking. If you’re trying to find a way to ask for consent that avoids the chance of being told ‘no’, well, you’re doing it wrong. Consent is about what the other person wants, not what you want. If you try and change their answer, you’ve already gone wrong.

And then, there’s people who are afraid of asking. Lots of people are conditioned to think that asking for things is greedy. Even worse, some people think, is when you ask someone something and they say no. Being told no can embarrass and shame people, and so they avoid asking, and they feel less bad than if they’d asked. It’s an unfortunate situation because it’s backwards! Asking is always better than not asking! If you ask someone something and they say ‘no’, and you accept that, you’ve done nothing wrong at all. There’s no reason to be ashamed about it. There’s nothing wrong with asking for permission. It’s when you don’t get permission that there’s a problem.

Phew, that was pretty heavy stuff, but it’s important. As always, if you want to ask or say anything about it, get in touch on Facebook and Twitter. Now I don’t know about you, but I could use a cup of tea...

Last week we looked at a new survey which showed girls started to believe they were less talented than boys from as young as six. This week we’re going to look at that idea, and some related stereotypes, and consider why it is we can be confident they’re not right.

It might sound like an obvious thing to say, but if two things contradict each other, they can’t both be true. If I think Storm is the best X-Man, and also that Jean Grey is better than Storm, well, something I think must be wrong, because those two things can't be true at the same time! But when we look at the stereotypes people are picking up in school, we notice that actually lots of them contradict each other! So let’s look at a few:

Like we said last week, girls think boys are more likely to be very smart.

Some subjects and jobs, like art or nursing, are considered subjects for girls.

Boys think being clever is not a ‘girly’ trait.

‘Girl’ subjects are seen as easier than ‘boy’ subjects.

Working hard is ‘girly’.

You can find lots of articles about these stereotypes and others. A few links are at the bottom of this post (they’re not super-exciting but they are important). These ideas have been around for a long time, and they’re not going away. In fact, the longer they stick around, the less likely they are to die out, because when people have ‘always known’ something, they’re less likely to question if it’s true. But have you spotted the problem yet? Let’s compare two of those ideas.

‘Boys are more likely to be smart’.‘Being clever is girly.’

It doesn’t make sense, does it? If boys are the smarter ones, how can it also be girly? If being smart is girly, why do girls assume boys will be smarter? The answer is, it’s a contradiction, because the stereotype isn't true. In reality, being smart isn’t connected to gender at all. What about these three:

If some subjects are easier because they’re for girls, then that means that the boys’ subjects are the harder ones. But if boys are doing harder subjects, how come hard work is a girl thing? Another contradiction! In another post we’ll take a look at ‘girl’ subjects and ‘boy’ subjects, and whether there’s any reason to label them that way. (Spoiler: There isn’t.) You can bet you’ll notice more contradictions popping up.

In fact, the idea that working hard is girly is impressively able to contradict itself, all by itself! If working hard is girly, then the harder you work, the more girly you are, and working your hardest is the most girly. But if a really masculine boy can’t work their hardest… How can it be their hardest? It can’t be the most they’re capable of, and also something they’re not capable of - It’s a contradiction yet again.

The Hulk might be able to smash through a planet, whilst Nick Fury would just hurt his hand, but that doesn’t mean Nick Fury can’t put 100% of his effort in. How hard you can try doesn’t have any connection to who you are! If being a boy meant you couldn’t put in 100% effort, how could it be 100% of your effort? Your gender can’t affect the effort you can put into something, so what’s the logic in thinking trying hard is a ‘girl’ thing? There isn’t any - It’s just a stereotype that people believe because they get told it a lot, even though it has no basis in fact. As we’ve seen, it can’t have a basis in fact!

Think about all the stereotypes you hear about; see if you can’t spot more contradictions between them. In fact, it’s always worth thinking about any new idea, checking it actually makes sense instead of just believing it does. Got any examples? Let us know on Facebook and Twitter!

Some links about those stereotypes:https://www.theguardian.com/education/2009/mar/29/education-schools-bullyinghttps://www.theguardian.com/education/2010/jul/13/women-students-stem-subjectshttps://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/mar/18/girls-physics-boys-other-subjects-gender-disparityhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10462869/Girls-schools-rejecting-traditionally-feminine-subjects.htmlhttps://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/glowblogs/uodedukrweportfolio/2015/11/19/why-are-health-studies-and-the-arts-being-seen-as-feminine-subjects/

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At TIGER we're always excited to hear from you, whether you've been to one of our workshops, you've got one coming up, or even if you've just found us online!

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